ABSTRACT

The past decade has witnessed an efflore-scence of critical commentary deploring the excessively genocentric focus of contemporary molecular and evolutionary biology. Among philosophers, the best known work may well be that of developmental systems theorists (DST) Oyama, Griffiths, and Gray (and sometimes including Lewontin and Moss), but related critiques have also emerged from a variety of other quarters. Expressing diverse intellectual and philosophical preoccupations, and motivated by a variety of scientific and political concerns, these analyses have converged on a number of common themes and sometimes even on strikingly similar formulations. 1 Common themes include: conceptual problems with the attribution of causal primacy (or even causal efficacy) to genes; 2 disarray in contemporary uses of the very term gene ; confusions and misapprehensions generated by use of the particular locution of “genetic program.” Much of the impetus behind these critiques issues from long-standing concerns, and indeed, many of the critical observations could have been (and in some cases have been) made long ago. Why then their particular visibility today? An obvious answer lies close at hand: Critiques of genocen-trism have found powerful support in many of the recent findings of molecular biologists. Indeed, I would argue that it is from these empirical findings that the major impetus for a reformulation of genetic phenomena now comes.